Stranger.—If a ghost, then, were disposed to pay you a visit, you would be in a proper state of mind for receiving such a visitor?
Montesinos.—I should not credit my senses lightly; neither should I obstinately distrust them, after I had put the reality of the appearance to the proof, as far as that were possible.
Stranger.—Should you like to have an opportunity afforded you?
Montesinos.—Heaven forbid! I have suffered so much in dreams from conversing with those whom even in sleep I knew to be departed, that an actual presence might perhaps be more than I could bear.
Stranger.—But if it were the spirit of one with whom you had no near ties of relationship or love, how then would it affect you?
Montesinos.—That would of course be according to the circumstances on both sides. But I entreat you not to imagine that I am any way desirous of enduring the experiment.
Stranger.—Suppose, for example, he were to present himself as I have done; the purport of his coming friendly; the place and opportunity suiting, as at present; the time also considerately chosen—after dinner; and the spirit not more abrupt in his appearance nor more formidable in aspect than the being who now addresses you?
Montesinos.—Why, sir, to so substantial a ghost, and of such respectable appearance, I might, perhaps, have courage enough to say with Hamlet,
“Thou com’st in such a questionable shape,
That I will speak to thee!”
Stranger.—Then, sir, let me introduce myself in that character, now that our conversation has conducted us so happily to the point. I told you truly that I was English by birth, but that I came from a more distant country than America, and had long been naturalised there. The country whence I come is not the New World, but the other one: and I now declare myself in sober earnest to be a ghost.